My thanks go to Mrs V.F. of Paris for alerting me to this banned Paddy Power TV Advert. It’s a fair bet that, whether or not Kauto Star is fit and well enough to run this year, the Cheltenham Festival will definitely be able to welcome this lot to the losers enclosure.

I trust that Mrs F will be spending placing her shilling each-way bets as sensibly as is her usual ?

A mate of mine recently asked me if it was a recording of me singing and playing the ukelele which Sainsburys are using in their current Christmas Ad campaign. Just to put him and anyone else’s mind at ease, it isn’t.

It is, of course a song by the great George Formby, with whom I’m sure you lot are bored shitless by now, he being the subject of many a post or comment within these here pages. I didn’t start writing hit singles til well into the 1970s. This song predates that by about 30 years. But I can see what my mate meant: this song is very me. Having looked up the lyrics (well, I can’t get out much nowadays. See how you like it – stuck at home watching Grand Designs compilations all the fucking time!!!! Piss off !!), I note that his outlook on life would have fitted in quite nicely here at The Sharp Single. Reading the words and dee-dee-deeing along with the video, I find myself agreeing with nearly all he says.

See what you think. And, of course, my regards to you and yours for the festive season.

I can laugh when things ain’t funny Ha, ha, happy-go-lucky me Yea, I can smile when I ain’t got no money Ha, ha, happy-go-lucky me

It may sound silly, but I don’t care I got the moonlight, I got the sun I got the stars above

I put it to you that no one can fail to be impressed with the genius that was Orson Welles. The daring of the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast, the cinematic splendour of Citizen Kane, and of course the near perfection of Carol Reed‘s The Third Man.

The new movie Me and Orson Welles is doing good business in the box office, and the BBC are celebrating the great man’s work by showing over this festive season some of his finest moments. But I suspect that one appearance will be missing from Auntie’s collection of celluloid gems by the great man. So I’d like to put that right.

Those of us of a certain age first came aware of Welles in the 1970s, whoring himself on TV ads for various brands of booze. But here’s one commercial that, for some reason, didn’t make it to air. He was clearly under a lot of stress at the time, or perhaps had been sampling the wares during rehearsals. Either way I think he hid it quite well.